


No one's gonna love you (more than I do)

by gunpowdereyes



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M, Season 6 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 11:23:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3207377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gunpowdereyes/pseuds/gunpowdereyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But instead of the closure he thinks any mature adult would feel in this situation, it’s a constant phantom itch under Blaine’s skin.  As hard as he tries not to, he still feels it between them.  Maybe that’s just how it is, when something intense and true and longstanding is really over.  Maybe it becomes a permanent echo in their bones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No one's gonna love you (more than I do)

**Author's Note:**

> Based on 6.05 spoilers. 
> 
> I wrote the majority of this before we knew it wasn’t a real elevator, or that I’d be right about some clothes coming off (which seemed a reasonable guess), etc. It mostly diverges from what we know of the actual event by now, but that’s okay. Warning for mentions of Karofsky -- though as brief and oblique as possible, because I will never quite stomach that.

“I cannot fucking believe this.”

In other circumstances, Blaine would be alarmed just to hear Kurt swearing so casually (outside of sex, his brain helpfully supplies, and he tells his brain – less casually – to go to hell).  In these circumstances, he just kind of has to agree with the sentiment.

“Aaaand … there is definitely no cell reception,” Blaine determines, jumping and waving his phone, just to make sure.

“There’s not even – wait yes! – wait no.  The emergency phone is OUT OF ORDER.  Is that even LEGAL?!”

“Kurt, this is Lima.”

“Point.”

“Can we pry the doors open?”

Kurt blanches.  “What if we’re between floors!”

“Even if we are, I _do_ have some –“

“—if you so much as breathe the words ‘superhero training’ I swear to god I am going to hunt down your Nightbird costume and set it on fire right in front of you the second we get out of here.”

“I’m not a _terrible_ climber, that’s all I’m saying,” Blaine mutters, somewhat affronted.  His costume is safely hidden anyway, but Kurt never did get the Nightbird thing, at least not outside of a few nights of really excellent roleplay s—god damn it will his brain STOP THAT.

Kurt just huffs.  “Yes, well, no one is climbing anywhere, and I’m not sure we could pry the doors apart even if we wanted to.  Not without a crowbar or something.  I have a feeling they’re built to prevent that sort of thing.  … I _hope_ they’re built to prevent that sort of thing.”  He casts them a mistrustful glance, as if just now considering how many times he might have met an untimely end if he’d been in an elevator with the wrong, crazy person if such a thing were possible.  At least, that’s what Blaine is suddenly thinking about.  At least until Kurt starts unbuttoning his shirt.  Because, um.

“What are you doing?”

“Suffering from rage-induced overheating!  How can you not be?”  He throws the shirt carelessly to the floor, it’s sure to wrinkle like that – clearly he is very angry.  Blaine is starting to feel a little too warm himself, trying not to look directly at Kurt’s arms in his tank top, his idiot body on the verge of betraying him, and shucks his jacket, unknots his bowtie with clumsy fingers.  This is becoming very bad …

… Be honest, it’s a thousand kinds of bad.  There’s something floating, euphoric, dangerous about how he feels right now.  Kurt and Blaine have spent weeks skirting each other’s perimeters, trying to pretend none of this feels as heavy and strange as it does.  Or Blaine has, anyway; he has no idea how to be Just Friends with Kurt.  Or worse, casual acquaintances, but he really, really can’t stand it when they act like strangers – it might be safer, but that is so untrue that it circles around from injury to make him angry with it.   Then he gets close to Kurt and he just wants to _touch_ him, sees his beauty and his laughter and his vulnerability and his maddening steely conviction that he’s right (even when he’s not) and he wants to stay angry, but more than that he just _wants_.  And no matter what Kurt said when he came back here, no matter how sad he’s looked sometimes while Blaine still burned with the unfairness of it all, Kurt was so horrifyingly sure when he broke things off and he seems to be taking steps to move on now.  But instead of the closure he thinks any mature adult would feel in this situation, it’s a constant phantom itch under Blaine’s skin.  As hard as he tries not to, he still feels it between them.  Maybe that’s just how it is, when something intense and true and longstanding is really over.  Maybe it becomes a permanent echo in their bones. 

And here they are, with all of that sitting on a precipice-risk between them, no way to know in which direction it might tip.  He knows he’s treating this too lightly, he knows the risk of being quite literally stuck in a small space with Kurt and the enormous, complicated mess they’ve made.  But there’s also a part of him that’s just glad, relieved to be away from everything and everyone, whittled down to the core of what they are.  Maybe he can finally fucking find out what they are, these days.

Blaine breathes deeply, returns to the task at hand.  “Do you think she’s – is there like a camera in here or something?”  He peers into the corners.  “One that shouldn’t be here I mean, I thought all elevators had cameras anyway, that’s why you see all those videos of people caught having sex when –“

“Shut UP, Blaine.”  Kurt doesn’t look at him, but does roll his eyes in that long-suffering, why-do-I-tolerate-you way that he does, no real heat behind it.  Blaine can’t decide if the familiarity of it is more comforting or painful.  “Anyway, if there IS a camera I don’t see it, and Sue is going to be VERY sorry when she finds out that all we did was freak out and figure out how to voodoo curse her and definitely not … have panic attacks … Oh my god,” Kurt whimpers, muffled as he drops his face into his hands, his breath starting to come short and quick, “we’re going to run out of air and die.”

Instinct is stronger than confusion or fear, and Blaine automatically drops beside Kurt, who has sunk to the floor and curled his arms around his knees, and places a gentle hand on his arm.  The skin is familiar, too warm under his touch.  “Breathe, Kurt, it’s going to be okay. We’re definitely not going to die.”

“Of course we are!  Sue is crazy and ruthless and easily distracted and she’ll probably forget she even did this, and I don’t even know if anyone uses this stupid building on the weekends besides morons like us.  Oh god, I’m going to die in an elevator with my ex-fiancé, what if they print that in the paper?  What if – what if they put it on my _headstone_?!  ‘NYADA ingénue and would-be Broadway star Kurt Hummel suffocates to death in an elevator along with his first and worst failed boyfriend.’”

“First of all, that would never fit on a headstone.  Secondly, at least Cooper wouldn’t try to write yours.  Thirdly,” Blaine says, losing the conviction he’s fighting for, not prepared for the plain truth of it laid out like that.  “… Can you not … call me that,” he says quietly.  “Even in terms of our hypothetical elevator deaths?  Please.”

It appears to take Kurt a minute to form the connection, though he doesn’t look up when he does.  It’s the stiffening of his shoulders that gives it away, an easy tell from a body Blaine knows better than his own.  “Well, you’re definitely not my _current_ fiancé,” he says, the bite in it undercut with something that almost sounds bitter.  Certainly sad. 

Blaine shifts to sit beside him, glances over at him.  He wants to say, _you were my best friend long before we forgot how to do this, and I still miss you like breathing._   He wants to say, _we should have worked harder, I’ve been spiralling and making a mess of my life and even now I wake up and forget we aren’t together, and shouldn’t we be?_   He’d desperately like to say _this whole thing with him was trying to put a band-aid on this gaping hole in my chest, the only thing I regret is losing you and I would give anything for you to have really meant it when you said you wanted me back._   A wounded, frustrated little part of him _really_ wants to say …

Don’t say it, don’t say it, do not say that, it’s the worst possible idea at the stupidest time in the craziest situation. 

Blaine says it.  “You do remember that becoming your ex was not my decision.” 

“OH MY GOD.”  Kurt’s head shoots up, and Blaine sits back, dimly registering that Kurt’s sudden explosive anger will at least distract him from his panic attack.  “Are we really going to sit in here for the next god knows how long and do THAT?!”

This is every reason not to have said that, because all of this sits so close to the surface still in Blaine; poorly buried in a fractured heart.  “Probably not, since we really didn’t do it the first time?  ‘We had a good run but let’s call it quits?’  To the guy you’d agreed to _marry?_ Ring a bell?”

“Blaine,” Kurt says, wide-eyed and shaking his head.  “I made an awful, stupid mistake!  I made a lot of stupid mistakes.  Wouldn’t you say we both did?  I know I got scared and I messed up and I gave up on us, and when I realized how stupid that was I came straight back here to fix it and it was _too late_ , you were, you’ve been …”  he gestures wildly, an all-encompassing flick of his hand that Blaine knows means Dave.  All of it. 

“I know you _said_ you came back to get back together, but what was going to change, Kurt?  How long would it have lasted?  Until you remembered yet again that you don’t even like me very much and that you could do better?  You _knew_ I was in bad shape when you broke up with me, you knew how bad it got at NYADA, you knew I came back here a total mess, and you didn’t make a single move to even see how I was.  You said you still loved me that night—”

Kurt looks stunned.  “I have _always_ loved you –“

“But you didn’t so much as send me a text.  I finally at least try to get something back together in my life back here and then you show up saying you’re going to win my trust and my heart back.”  There is no curbing the bitterness in his own tone, and he doesn’t try.  “As easy as that, like it was just as easy to reclaim as it was to throw away.  What about that exactly did you expect me to trust?”

“I wanted to come back and prove it to you, Blaine!  I would have!  But I didn’t know what else to do, you’re happy, and you’ve completely moved on, and –“

“Happy?  You think I’m – do you have any idea what these past few months have been like for me?”  Blaine feels shell-shocked and raw, and is relieved that his voice finally reflects what he’s feeling – finally not anger so much as exhaustion.  The feeling of being crushed under the weight of despair with no rescue coming, last-minute or otherwise.  “Wait, please just let me say this?”  Kurt blinks and falls silent, nodding at Blaine’s upheld hand. 

“You are the love of my life, Kurt.  That hasn’t changed, that’s … that’s never going to change.  And this whole –“He wants to make a face to put this name on it, it never has quite fit, but it seems unfair not to now that the end of it is clearly in sight, “—relationship is just.  I don’t think either of us ever thought it would amount to anything much.  I know that probably sounds awful, but it wasn’t really a secret how I felt about you, I just threw myself into the most different thing there was from you.  I was so angry, all the time.  I don’t know why you think I’m happy …” His voice falters.

“You’ve seemed pretty happy to not be with me, at least,” Kurt says, his so-soft voice not betraying much.  “You live with him.”  It falters here.  “We couldn’t get that right, so I thought, I thought it must be something.  But you always were a better actor than me.”  Blaine has no idea what the accusation is within that; wonders again when he started looking for the hidden double meaning behind what Kurt says to him.  Wonders again what the hell _happened_ to them.

“Not true,” Blaine says, but can’t help the smile that forms.  “Although maybe if you’ve bought into me being happy, I’ve gotten better.  I’ve been livid.  I’ve been miserable.  Right now I’d say I’m surviving, and some of it’s better than the rest of it.  But no matter how much I want things to be different, I can’t keep …” He scratches a hand into his hair, feeling the gel letting go, tremendously unconcerned about it.  “I would have married you _any_ time, do you know that?  In five weeks or five years, there wasn’t supposed to be any pressure in asking because there wasn’t supposed to be any rush.  I didn’t mean it to _fix_ everything – I mean yeah, I guess part of me hoped it would do that too, and I know that was stupid,” he says, seeing Kurt again about to interject, “but I just wanted us to figure things out _together._   And maybe I never said it right, maybe I got worried and jealous and had a hard time and just needed support, and you kept saying all the right things but then turning around and just burying me again, and …”

“And being apart is better?”  Kurt’s voice is shaking, the way it does when emotion is forced from him that he doesn’t quite want to allow. 

Blaine shrugs, swallows.  “No?  Kurt I’ve mostly been surviving.  I’ve been trying to get my head around …”  He blows out a breath.  “I guess I’ve always been idealistic.  Or unrealistic, about love?  Like I always thought it would be this great, life-changing, all-consuming thing.  That even when it was bad or hard it would be worth the work, worth the time.  And I had that with you and it was _amazing_.  Or I mean, I thought I had that with you.”  This is still harder to say than Blaine can really get a handle on.  “But maybe love isn’t supposed to be that at all.  Maybe it’s just … companionship.  Maybe that’s all there really is, for me anyway.  I know I screwed up too, I know I put more out there than you wanted, by the end I could never find the right way to be what you wanted at all.  And I’m not saying he’s it, I think we both know by now that it’s been a rebound, but maybe it’s supposed to be enough just to have somebody who doesn’t end up hating who I am.”  He sighs.  This awful, gnawing thing that has grown past any ability he has to contain feels as true as anything ever has between them.  “I’ve been so angry, but I think it’s because I just really didn’t want to think about — knowing that you’re my soulmate isn’t enough, Kurt.  Because I still know that, I have always known that.  But I had to try to understand that maybe, maybe I’m just not … yours.”

Kurt’s eyes, dropped low, sweep slowly up-up-up to meet Blaine’s as he registers this, in that timeless slow-motion way he does.  Kurt always made noise about Blaine looking like a movie star, but it’s Kurt, classic and effortless and still, who always calls that to mind for Blaine. 

“You cannot,” he says finally, voice little more than a whisper, “actually believe that.”

Blaine closes his eyes, gestures at the space between them.  “It’s the last thing in the world that I want to believe.  But nothing’s exactly proven me wrong, Kurt.”

Shock and horror flash in Kurt’s eyes as he slowly shakes his head.  “Blaine.  You are.  If you never want me back, you still have to know that you deserve so much more than _companionship_.  You are …” He’s crying, and Blaine feels it in him like a tidal pull.  “You are kind and funny and so talented, and smart, and gorgeous, and sexy, and so full of love.  You, you light up a room.  You’re a million things that would make any guy, any—someone who isn’t too busy being closed off and stubborn and proud—so lucky to be yours.  Even if I never feel it again, Blaine, being loved by you is the most precious thing.  And I didn’t mean to take it for granted, I just didn’t know how to handle any of it, and I’ve been trying so hard to get better but no matter what, please don’t settle.  You are worth so much more than that, and I will never stop regretting being too scared to show you that.”

Should this feel like a victory?  Like relief?  Blaine can’t tell.  “God, Kurt, we’ve gotten so far off the same page I’m not even sure we’re in the same book anymore.  I feel like I can’t make you happy at all, and the harder I tried, the more stupid things I did, the worse it was.  I am _not_ blaming you,” he says earnestly, “not for all of this, and I wish you wouldn’t blame yourself.  We’re both responsible for this happening.  But I just — I believe you mean all of that, I really do, but I still have no idea how to make you happy.”

“I am sorrier for hurting you than I could ever tell you, but please don’t ever think you had to change to be good enough for me.”  Kurt tries for a smile; manages a quirk of one through his tears.  “Being in a room with you makes me happy.  It always has.”

Blaine doesn’t know how to answer that.

Minutes crawl by in silence, heavy with thought and each other’s presence.  But not awkward.  When Blaine extends his hand, tentative and expecting nothing, Kurt takes it and holds on tight.

***

Sue has more temerity than anyone Blaine has ever met – and Blaine is friends with Rachel _and_ Santana.  If this is what she’s doing, then she’s clearly in it for the long haul.  He wonders if singing would be too much, break this fragile thing between them, because he sort of aches to hear Kurt’s clear, sweet voice. 

Kurt thankfully interrupts his rapidly derailing train of thought.  “Blaine?”  He clears his throat.  “Do you have anything to eat?  I skipped lunch, I’m starving.”

“Um …” Blaine fishes in his bag.  “Jelly beans?”  He has to let go of Kurt’s hand to cup it and pour them, automatically picking back the yellows and giving over his extra blacks.  He can feel Kurt’s pause as he murmurs his thanks; can sense the eyes on him, but doesn’t look up to confirm what might be there.  What he hopes might be there because, well.  What if it’s not.

No matter what happens now, he knows what he has to do when he leaves here.  He knows how unfair he’s been, although he doesn’t know if it’s guilt or disappointment he feels.  He’s not sorry for trying something different – not really.  He’s sorry that he ever felt like he had to try.  Really it’s just cemented what he’s known he wanted all along. 

“So how was your date?” Blaine asks, skin still prickling at the thought.  Worse when Kurt flushes, though he’s also shaking his head.

“Oh … he was nice?  Super nice.  And also 50 and just separated from his wife.”

“Oh my god.”  They stare at each other for a beat before they’re laughing, falling breathless into each other, and Blaine feels more of the horrible tension ebbing away.  Not like he’s 15 with his best friend, not quite like that, but like he’s finally laughing again with the man who promised, not so long ago, to spend his life with Blaine.

***

“Are you really not going back to school?” Kurt asks quietly, after a time.  They’re trading Kurt’s bottle of water, sitting easy against each other, shoulder to shoulder.  Blaine doesn’t answer immediately.

“Of course I want to,” he says haltingly, “if they’d even take me back.  But it can’t be all about us again either way.  I can’t make my success or failure all about you any more than yours should be about me, but I also don’t want to have to keep proving that we can manage things apart.  I need us to prove that we can make it together.  That’s been kind of tough for me to figure out.”

Kurt nods.  “It’s funny because as soon as I realized how much I was still in love with you, it just kind of sank in that we were making all of it way more complicated than it should have been.  Because it was so important, and so much, and yeah it was hard, but – Blaine.  You and me have never been anything but exactly right for one another.” 

***

Time passes, and passes, and passes while they’re suspended within it.  Blaine has yet to decide if it’s a good thing or a bad thing – because there is a chance that when they finally get out of here, their lives will go back to being as ugly and complicated in relation to each other as they were before.  And it was terrible before, but he’s not sure he can bear that, now.

“I really want to kiss you now.”  Kurt’s eyes are closed and his thigh is pressed flush against Blaine’s and his voice is pitched so low.  But there’s no mistaking what he said.

Blaine licks his lips.  “That’s … all I want, believe me.  But you know what I have to do first.  I don’t want this to be how we start over.” 

“I do know.”  Kurt sighs.  “Does it really count as cheating if it’s with the person whose hand you’re supposed to hold fearlessly and forever?”  Kurt’s smile is watery when he opens his eyes, but so naked and hopeful and real that Blaine can barely breathe. 

“Oh.”  Blaine’s laugh hiccups into a sob.  “I’m not sure it was covered in that contract.  I could check.”

“We should write a new one,” Kurt whispers.  He takes Blaine’s hand, presses a so-sweet kiss to Blaine’s cheek, lingering there and closing his eyes, forehead resting against Blaine’s.  “I love you.”

And Blaine feels every inch of his heart expand, like he’s breathing out for the first time since they said goodbye all that time ago.  “God, I love you too.”

They startle apart as the elevator rumbles to life, then turn to stare at each other.

“There is definitely a camera in here,” Kurt mutters, climbing to his feet and pulling Blaine up with him, but he doesn’t seem very put out by it anymore.  He actually seems to be unable to contain that cautious and hopeful little smile, one Blaine feels mirrored stupidly on his own face.  He squeezes Blaine’s hand.  “Hey.  We _are_ starting over, right?”

“No.”  He squeezes back as Kurt’s eyes flutter open, hurt ready to bloom.  “We’re too good to start over.  We’re just … reconnecting, and growing, and moving forward.  Together.”

A real smile breaks on Kurt’s face, open and unguarded, and god, Blaine _loves_ him.  “Blaine?”

“Mm?”

“I know we have a lot of things to talk through, and hard work to do, and decisions to make.  But just for the record, the next time we get stuck in an elevator, we are having a _crazy_ amount of sex.”

“Deal,” Blaine says faintly, already starting to contemplate how that might be arranged.


End file.
